AREF.The full researcher journey, managed end to end.
A unified digital platform for the Africa Research Excellence Fund — managing everything from grant application and multi-stage review through to active programme delivery, researcher development, and long-term alumni engagement.
Platform developer, system architect & delivery lead
nuvoteQ designed and built two deeply integrated systems for AREF — a Grant Management System (GMS) handling pre-award and award workflows, and a Researcher Development Management System (RDMS) managing programme delivery and alumni engagement. Together they carry a researcher from first application through to long-term career impact.
Key capabilities
Multi-stage review engine
AREF publishes configurable grant calls to a public portal, then runs every application through a fully configurable review pipeline — eligibility screening, expertise-matched peer review, scored shortlisting, and panel decisions — all coordinated from one dashboard.
- No-code call builder: eligibility fields, document rules, and sponsor sign-off per call
- Reviewer matching: expertise-scored suggestions with auto-pick top-N
- Conflict-of-interest controls: hard blocks and advisory flags, with per-stage blinding
- Configurable stages: eligibility → scored review → panel → interview, with threshold advancement
Awards, due diligence & contracting
Once an award is confirmed, the platform runs institutional due diligence, generates contracts from templates, and routes them for digital signature — tracking every award's contract status and payment progress in a single register.
- Award register: grantee, programme, amount, term, and live payment progress
- Institutional due diligence: questionnaire, distribution, and committee decisions
- Digital contracting: template merge fields, approval routing, and native e-signature
- Contract lifecycle: drafting → approval routing → countersignature → active
Financial management & reporting
Finance staff manage budgets, approve grantee invoices, and track spend against every budget line — with portfolio-level reporting across financials, impact, and demographics, all exportable for donors and the board.
- Budget tracking: total grant budget, spend-to-date, and remaining across programmes
- Budget vs actuals: expenditure by category with a spend-distribution breakdown
- Invoicing: grantee submission, finance review, and payment status tracking
- Exportable reports: financials, impact, and demographics in a few clicks
Researcher development & programmes
Programme Managers run reusable programme templates and cohorts; each participant follows their own programme timeline — milestones, workshops, and activities — alongside a development plan mapped to the Vitae Researcher Development Framework.
- Programme timeline: milestones from orientation through to completion, per participant
- Development plans: PDP goals visualised against Vitae competency domains
- Cohorts & activities: reusable templates, enrolment, resources, and attendance
- Evidence & CV: achievements, publications, and an exportable CV from profile data
Monitoring, evaluation & Theory of Change
MEL staff configure a living Theory of Change directly in the platform — impact, outcome, and output levels with indicator targets — and a RAG status chain shows instantly what is on track, at risk, or behind.
- Theory of Change engine: impact → long-term → medium-term levels, with relationship validation
- Indicator registry & aggregation rules: targets and reporting periods per indicator
- RAG status: green / amber / red visibility at every level of the framework
- Evaluations: survey creation, targeted assignment, attendance, and certification
Alumni & researcher network
A public 'Discover Our Network' map and directory profiles researchers across Africa — searchable by country and expertise — so alumni stay visible and connected long after their programme ends.
- Interactive map & directory: researchers pinned across Africa, searchable by country and expertise
- Alumni community: thematic sub-groups, moderated forums, and a recognition timeline
- Success stories: creation, editorial moderation, and public showcase
- Public discovery: an open network view for unauthenticated visitors
Role-based dashboards & one identity
Every role — applicant, grants administrator, programme manager, reviewer, mentor, alumnus, or guest — gets a dashboard scoped to exactly what they need, and one identity carries a researcher across both GMS and RDMS with no duplicate data entry.
- Role-scoped dashboards: each user sees only their programmes, actions, and activities
- One identity: a single ID with Google / Microsoft SSO across both systems
- No re-entry: GMS profile data seeds the RDMS participant record automatically
- Least-privilege access: strict per-role permissions, no out-of-scope data